If we are dissatisfied with custom and habit and seek to take philosophy
for the guide of life we have two possibilities: (1) we may look for the
good, and treat right and duty as subordinate concepts which indicate
the way to the good, that is, consider them as good as a means, or (2)
we may seek first to do right irrespective of consequences, in the
belief that in willing to do right we are already in possession of the
highest good. In either case we may consider our standards and values
either as in some sense fixed or as in the making.[68] We may suppose
that good is objective and absolute, that right is discovered by a
rational faculty, or we may consider that in regarding good as objective
we have not made it independent of the valuing process and that in
treating right as a standard we have not thereby made it a fixed concept
to be discovered by the pure intellect. The position of this paper will
be (1) that good while objective is yet objective as a value and not as
an essence or physical fact; (2) that a social factor in value throws
light upon the relation between moral and other values; (3) that right
is not merely a means to the good but has an independent place in the
moral consciousness; (4) that right while signifying order does not
necessarily involve a timeless, eternal order since it refers to an
order of personal relations; (5) that the conception of right instead of
being a matter for pure reason or even the "cognitive faculty" shows an
intimate blending of the emotional and intellectual and that this
appears particularly in the conception of the reasonable.
(1) We begin with the question of the synthetic and objective character
of the good. With G. E. Moore as with the utilitarians the good is the
ultimate concept. Right and duty are means to the good. Moore and
Rashdall also follow Sidgwick in regarding good as unique, that is, as
"synthetic." Sidgwick emphasized in this especially the point that moral
value cannot be decided by physical existence or the course of
evolution, nor can the good be regarded as meaning the pleasant. Moore
and Russell reinforce this. However true it may be that pleasure is one
among other good things or that life is one among other good things,
good does not mean either pleasure or survival. Good means just "good."
A similar thought underlies Croce's division of the Practical into the
two spheres of the Economic and the Ethical. "The economic activity is
that which wills and effects only what corresponds to the conditions of
fact in which a man finds himself; the ethical activity is that which,
although it correspond to these conditions, also refers to something
that transcends them. To the first correspond what are called
individual ends, to the second universal ends; the one gives rise to the
judgment concerning the greater or less coherence of the action taken in
itself, the other to that concerning its greater or less coherence in
respect to the universal end, which transcends the individual.[69]
Utilitarianism is according to Croce an attempt to reduce the Ethical to
the Economic form, although the utilitarians as men attempt in various
ways to make a place for that distinction which as philosophers they
would suppress. "Man is not a consumer of pleasures. He is a creator of
life." With this claim of the distinctive, synthetic, character of the
moral consciousness and of the impossibility of testing the worth of
ideals by cosmic laws, or by gratification of particular wants as
measured by pleasure, I have no issue. The analysis of the moral
judgment made above points out just how it is that good is synthetic. It
is synthetic in that it represents a measuring and valuing of
ends--instinctive and imagined, individual and social--against each
other and as part of a whole to which a growing self corresponds. It is
synthetic in that it represents not merely a process of evaluating ends
which match actually defined desires, but also a process in which the
growing self, dissatisfied with any ends already in view, gropes for
some new definition of ends that shall better respond to its living,
creative capacity, its active synthetic character. Good is the concept
for just this valuing process as carried on by a conscious being that is
not content to take its desire as ready made by its present
construction, but is reaching out for ends that shall respond to a
growing, expanding, inclusive, social, self. It expresses value _as_
value.
Value _as value!_ not as being; nor as independent essence; nor as
anything static and fixed. For a synthetic self, a living personality,
could find no supreme value in the complete absence of valuing, in the
cessation of life, in the negation of that very activity of projection,
adventure, construction, and synthesis in which it has struck out the
concept good. A theory of ethics which upholds the synthetic character
of the good may be criticized as being not synthetic enough if it fails
to see that on the basis of the mutual determination of percepts and
concepts, of self and objects, the synthetic character of the process
must be reflected in the ultimate meaning of the category which
symbolizes and incorporates the process.
(2) We may find some light upon the question how moral value gets its
distinctive and unique character, and how it comes to be more
"objective" than economic value if we consider some of the social
factors in the moral judgment. For although the concept good is rooted
in the life process with its selective activity and attending emotions
it involves a subtle social element, as well as the more commonly
recognized factors of intelligence.
Within the fundamental selective process two types of behavior tend to
differentiate in response to two general sorts of stimulation. One sort
is simpler, more monotonous, more easily analyzable. Response to such
stimulation, or treatment of objects which may be described under these
terms of simple, analyzable, etc., is easily organized into a habit. It
calls for no great shifts in attention, no sudden readjustments. There
is nothing mysterious about it. As satisfying various wants it has a
certain kind of value. It, however, evokes no consciousness of self.
Toward the more variable, complex sort of stimuli, greater attention,
constant adjustment and readjustment, are necessary.
Objects of the first sort are treated as things, in the sense that they
do not call out any respect from us or have any intrinsic value. We
understand them through and through, manipulate them, consume them,
throw them away. We regard them as valuable only with reference to our
wants. On the other hand, objects of the second sort take their place in
a bi-focal situation. Our attention shifts alternately to their behavior
and to our response, or, conversely, from our act to their response.
This back and forth movement of attention in the case of certain of
these objects is reinforced by the fact that certain stimuli from them
or from the organism, find peculiar responses already prepared in social
instincts; gesture and language play their part. Such a bi-focal
situation as this, when completely developed, involves persons. In its
earlier stages it is the quasi-personal attitude which is found in
certain savage religious attitudes, in certain aesthetic attitudes, and
in the emotional attitudes which we all have toward many of the objects
of daily life.
Economic values arise in connection with attitudes toward things. We buy
things, we sell them. They have value just in that they gratify our
wants, but they do not compel any revision or change in wants or in the
self which wants. They represent a partial interest--or if they become
the total interest we regard them as now in the moral sphere. Values of
personal affection arise as we find a constant rapport in thought,
feeling, purpose, between the two members of our social consciousness.
The attitude is that of going along with another and thereby extending
and enriching our experiences. We enter into his ideas, range with his
imagination, kindle at his enthusiasms, sympathize with his joys or
sorrows. We may disagree with our friend's opinions, but we do not
maintain a critical attitude toward _him_, that is, toward his
fundamental convictions and attitudes. If "home is the place where, when
you have to go there, they have to take you in," as Frost puts it, a
friend is one who, when you go to him, has to accept you.
Moral values also arise in a social or personal relation--not in
relation to things. This is on the surface in the form of judgment; "He
is a good man," "That is a good act." If it is less obvious in the
practical judgment, "This is the better course of action," i.e., the
course which leads to the greater good, or to the good, this is because
we fail to discern that the good in these cases is a something with
which I can identify myself, not a something which I merely possess and
keep separate from my personality. It is something I shall be rather
than have. Or if I speak of a share or participation it is a sharing in
the sense of entering into a kindred life. It is an ideal, and an ideal
for a conscious personal being can hardly be other than conscious. It
may be objected that however personal the ideal it is not on this
account necessarily social. It embodies what I would be, but does not
necessarily imply response to any other personality. This, however,
would be to overlook the analyses which recent psychology has made of
the personal. The ideal does not develop in a vacuum. It implies for one
thing individuality which is conceivable only as other individuals are
distinguished. It implies the definition of purposes, and such
definition is scarcely if ever attempted except as a possible world of
purposes is envisaged.
AEsthetic valuation is in certain respects intermediate between the
valuation of things on the one hand and the moral evaluation of acts of
persons or conscious states on the other. AEsthetic objects are in many
cases seemingly things and yet even as things they are quasi-personal;
they are viewed with a certain sympathy quite different from that which
we feel for a purely economic object. If it is a work of art the artist
has embodied his thought and feeling and the observer finds it there.
The experience is that of _Einfuehlung_. Yet we do not expect the kind of
response which we look for in friendship, nor do we take the object as
merely a factor for the guidance or control of our own action as in the
practical judgment of morality. The aesthetic becomes the object of
contemplation, not of response; of embodied meaning, not of
individuality. It is so far personal that no one of aesthetic sensibility
likes to see a thing of beauty destroyed or mistreated. The situation
in which we recognize in an object meaning and embodied feeling, or at
least find sources of stimulation which appeal to our emotions, develops
an aesthetic enhancement of conscious experience. The aesthetic value
predicate is the outcome of this peculiar enhancement.
It seems that the social nature of the judgment plays a part also in the
varying objectivity of values. It is undoubtedly true that some values
are treated as belonging to objects. If we cannot explain this fully we
may get some light upon the situation by noticing the degree to which
this is true in the cases of the kinds of values already described.
Economic values are dubiously objective. We use both forms of
expression. We say on the one hand, "I want wheat," "There is a demand
for wheat," or, on the other, "Wheat is worth one dollar a bushel."
Conversely, "There is no demand for the old-fashioned high-framed
bicycle" or "It is worthless." The Middle Ages regarded economic value
as completely objective. A thing had a _real value_. The retailer could
not add to it. The mediaeval economist believed in the externality of
relations; he prosecuted for the offenses of forestalling and regrating
the man who would make a profit by merely changing things in place. He
condemned usury. We have definitely abandoned this theory. We recognize
that it is the want which makes the value. To make exchange possible and
socialize to some degree the scale of prices we depend upon a public
market or a stock exchange.
In values of personal affection we may begin with a purely individual
attitude, "I love or esteem my friend." If I put it more objectively I
may say, "He is an honored and valued friend." Perhaps still more
objectively, we--especially if we are feminine--may say "Is not X dear?"
We may then go on to seek a social standard. We perhaps look for
reinforcement in a small group of like-minded. We are a little perplexed
and, it may be, aggrieved if other members of the circle do not love the
one whom we love. In such a group judgment of a common friend there is
doubtless greater objectivity than in the economic judgment. The value
of a friend does not depend upon his adjustment to our wants. As
Aristotle pointed out, true friendship is for its own sake. Its value is
"disinterested." If a man does not care for an economic good it does not
reflect upon him. He may be careless of futures, neglectful of corn,
indifferent to steel. It lessens the demand, lowers the values of these
goods, an infinitesimal, but does not write him down an inferior person.
To fail to prize a possible friend is a reflection upon us. However the
fact that in the very nature of the case one can scarcely be a personal
friend to a large, not to say a universal group, operates to limit the
objectivity.
In the aesthetic and moral attitudes we incorporate value in the object
decisively. We do not like to think that beauty can be changed with
shifting fashions or to affirm that the firmament was ever anything but
sublime. It seems to belong to the very essence of right that it is
something to which the self can commit itself in absolute loyalty and
finality. And, as for good, we may say with Moore in judgments of
intrinsic value, at least, "we judge concerning a particular state of
things that it would be worth while--would be a good thing--that that
state of things should exist, even if nothing else were to exist
besides."
With regard to this problem of objectivity it is significant in the
first place that the kind of situation out of which this object value is
affirmed in aesthetic and moral judgments is a social situation. It
contrasts in this respect with the economic situation. The economic is
indeed social in so far as it sets exchange values, but the object
valued is not a social object. The aesthetic and moral object is such an
object. Not only is there no contradiction in giving to the symbolic
form or the moral act intrinsic value: there is entire plausibility in
doing so. For in so far as the situation is really personal, _either
member is fundamentally equal to the other and may be treated as
embodying all the value of the situation_. The value which rises to
consciousness in the situation is made more complete by eliminating from
consideration the originating factors, the plural agents of admiration
or approval, and incorporating the whole product abstractly in the
object. In thus calling attention to the social or personal character of
the aesthetic or moral object it is not intended to minimize that factor
in the judgment which we properly speak of as the universalizing
activity of thought, much less to overlook the importance of the
judgmental process itself. The intention is to point out some of the
reasons why in one case the thinking process does universalize while in
the other it does not, why in one case the judgment is completely
objective while in the other it is not. In both aesthetic and moral
judgments social art, social action, social judgments, through
collective decisions prepare the way for the general non-personal,
objective form. It is probable that man would not say, "This is right,"
using the word as an adjective, if he had not first said, as member of a
judicially acting group, "This is right," using the word as a noun. And
finally whatever we may claim as to the "cognitive" nature of the
aesthetic and moral judgment, the only test for the beauty of an object
is that persons of taste discover it. The only test for the rightness of
an act is that persons of good character approve it. The only test for
goodness is that good persons on reflection approve and choose it--just
as the test for good persons is that they choose and do the good.
(3) Right is not merely a means to good but has a place of its own in
the moral consciousness. Many of our moral choices or judgments do not
take the form of choice between right and wrong, or between duty and its
opposite; they appear to be choices between goods. That is, we do not
always consider our value as crystallized into a present standard or
feel a tension between a resisting and an authoritative self. But when
they do emerge they signify a distinct factor. What Moore says of good
may be said also of right. Right means just "right," nothing else. That
is, we mean that acts so characterized correspond exactly to a self in a
peculiar attitude, viz., one of adequate standardizing and adjustment,
of equilibrium, in view of all relations. The concept signifies that in
finding our way into a moral world into which we are born in the process
of valuing and judging, we take along the imagery of social judgment in
which through language and behavior the individual is constantly
adjusting himself, not only to the social institutions, and group
organization but far more subtly and unconsciously to the social
consciousness and attitudes.
This conception of an order to which the act must refer has usually been
regarded as peculiarly a "rational" factor. It is, however, rather an
order of social elements, of a nature of persons, than of a "nature of
things." In savage life the position of father, wife, child, guest, or
other members of the household, is one of the most prominent facts of
the situation. The relationship of various totem groups and
inter-marrying groups is the very focus of moral consciousness. Even in
the case of such a cosmic conception of order as Dike and Themis, Rita
and Tao, the "Way" is not impersonal cosmos. It is at least
quasi-personal. And if we say such primitive myth has no bearing on what
the "nature" of right or the "true" meaning of right is, it is pertinent
to repeat that concepts without percepts are empty; that the term means
nothing except the conceptual interpretation of a unique synthetic
process in which an act placed in relation to a standard is thereby
given new meaning. So long as custom or law forms the only or the
dominant factor in the process, we have little development of the ideal
concept right as distinct from a factual standard. But when reason and
intelligence enter, particularly when that creative activity of
intelligence enters which attempts a new construction of ends, a new
ordering of possible experience, then the standardizing process is set
free; a new self with new possibilities of relation seeks expression.
The concept "right" reflects the standardizing, valuing process of a
synthetic order and a synthetic self. Duty born similarly in the world
of social relations and reflecting especially the tension between the
individual and the larger whole is likewise given full moral
significance when it becomes a tension within the synthetic self. And as
thus reflecting the immediate attitudes of the self to an ideal social
order both right and duty are not to be treated merely as means to any
value which does not include as integrant factors just what these
signify.
This view is contrary to that of Moore, for whom "right does and can
mean nothing but 'cause of a good result,' and is thus identical with
useful."[70] The right act is that which has the best consequences.[71]
Similarly duty is that action which will cause more good to exist in the
Universe than any possible alternative. It is evident that this makes it
impossible for any finite mind to assert confidently that any act is
right or a duty. "Accordingly it follows that we never have any reason
to suppose that an action is our duty: we can never be sure that any
action will produce the greatest value possible.[72]
Whatever the convenience of such a definition of right and duty for a
simplified ethics it can hardly be claimed to accord with the moral
consciousness, for men have notoriously supposed certain acts to be
duty. To say that a parent has no reason to suppose that it is his duty
to care for his child is more than paradox. And a still greater
contradiction to the morality of common sense inheres in the doctrine
that the right act is that which has the best consequences. Considering
all the good to literature and free inquiry which has resulted from the
condemnation of Socrates it is highly probable--or at least it is
arguable--that the condemnation had better results than an acquittal
would have yielded. But it would be contrary to our ordinary use of
language to maintain that this made the act right. Or to take a more
recent case: the present war may conceivably lead to a more permanent
peace. The "severities," practised by one party, may stir the other to
greater indignation and lead ultimately to triumph of the latter. Will
the acts in question be termed right by the second party if they
actually have this effect? On this hypothesis the more outrageous an act
and the greater the reaction against it, the better the consequences are
likely to be and hence the more reason to call the act right and a duty.
The paradox results from omitting from right the elements of the
immediate situation and considering only consequences. The very meaning
of the concept right, implies focussing attention upon the present
rather than upon the future. It suggests a cross-section of life in its
relations. If the time process were to be arrested immediately after our
act I think we might still speak of it as right or wrong. In trying to
judge a proposed act we doubtless try to discover what it will mean,
that is, we look at consequences. But these consequences are looked upon
as giving us the meaning of the present act and we do not on this
account subordinate the present act to these consequences. Especially we
do not mean to eliminate the significance of this very process of
judgment. It is significant that in considering what are the intrinsic
goods Moore enumerates personal affection and the appreciation of
beauty, and with less positiveness, true belief, but does not include
any mention of the valuing or choosing or creative consciousness.
(4) If we regard right as the concept which reflects the judgment of
standardizing our acts by some ideal order, questions arise as to the
objectivity of this order and the fixed or moving character of the
implied standard. Rashdall lays great stress upon the importance of
objectivity: "Assuredly there is no scientific problem upon which so
much depends as upon the answer we give to the question whether the
distinction which we are accustomed to draw between right and wrong
belongs to the region of objective truth like the laws of mathematics
and of physical science, or whether it is based upon an actual emotional
constitution of individual human beings."[73] The appraisement of the
various desires and impulses by myself and other men is "a piece of
insight into the true nature of things."[74] While these statements are
primarily intended to oppose the moral sense view of the judgment, they
also bear upon the question whether right is something fixed. The
phrase "insight into the true nature of things" suggests at once the
view that the nature of things is quite independent of any attitude of
human beings toward it. It is something which the seeker for moral truth
may discover but nothing which he can in any way modify. It is urged
that if we are to have any science of ethics at all what was once right
must be conceived as always right in the same circumstances.[75]
I hold no brief for the position--if any one holds the position--that in
saying "this is right" I am making an assertion about my own feelings or
those of any one else. As already stated the function of the judging
process is to determine objects, with reference to which we say "is" or
"is not." The emotional theory of the moral consciousness does not give
adequate recognition to this. But just as little as the process of the
moral consciousness is satisfied by an emotional theory of the judgment
does it sanction any conception of objectivity which requires that
values are here or there once for all; that they are fixed entities or
"a nature of things" upon which the moral consciousness may look for its
information but upon which it exercises no influence. The process of
attempting to give--or discover--moral values is a process of mutual
determination of object and agent. We have to do in morals not with a
nature of things but with natures of persons. The very characteristic of
a person as we have understood it is that he is synthetic, is actually
creating something new by organizing experiences and purposes, by
judging and choosing. Objectivity does not necessarily imply
changelessness.
Whether right is a term of fixed and changeless character depends upon
whether the agents are fixed units, either in fact or in ideal. If, as
we maintain, right is the correlate of a self confronting a world of
other persons conceived as all related in an order, the vital question
is whether this order is a fixed or a moving order. "Straight" is a term
of fixed content just because we conceive space in timeless terms; it is
by its very meaning a cross-section of a static order. But a world of
living intelligent agents in social relations is in its very
presuppositions a world of activity, of mutual understanding and
adjustment. Rationalistic theory, led astray by geometrical conceptions,
conceived that a universal criterion must be like a straight line, a
fixed and timeless--or eternal--entity. But in such an order of fixed
units there could be no selection, no adjustment to other changing
agents, no adventure upon the new untested possibility which marks the
advance of every great moral idea, in a word, no morality of the
positive and constructive sort. And if it be objected that the predicate
of a judgment must be timeless whatever the subject, that the word "is"
as Plato insists cannot be used if all flows, we reply that if right=the
correlate of a moving order, of living social intelligent beings, it is
quite possible to affirm "This is according to that law." If our logic
provides no form of judgment for the analysis of such a situation it is
inadequate for the facts which it would interpret. But in truth
mankind's moral judgments have never committed themselves to any such
implication. We recognize the futility of attempting to answer simply
any such questions as whether the Israelites did right to conquer Canaan
or Hamlet to avenge his father.
(5) The category of right has usually been closely connected, if not
identified, with reason or "cognitive" activity as contrasted with
emotion. Professor Dewey on the contrary has pointed out clearly[76] the
impossibility of separating emotion and thought. "To put ourselves in
the place of another ... is the surest way to attain universality and
objectivity of moral knowledge." "The only truly general, the reasonable
as distinct from the merely shrewd or clever thought, is the _generous_
thought." But in the case of certain judgments such as those approving
fairness and the general good Sidgwick finds a rational intuition. "The
principle of impartiality is obtained by considering the similarity of
the individuals that make up a Logical Whole or Genus."[77] Rashdall
challenges any but a rationalistic ethics to explain fairness as
contrasted with partiality of affection.
There is without question a properly rational or intellectual element in
the judgment of impartiality, namely, analysis of the situation and
comparison of the units. But what we shall set up as our units--whether
we shall treat the gentile or the barbarian or negro as a person, as end
and not merely means, or not, depends on something quite other than
reason. And this other factor is not covered by the term "practical
reason." In fact no ethical principle shows better the subtle blending
of the emotional and social factors with the rational. For the student
of the history of justice is aware that only an extraordinarily
ingenious exegesis could regard justice as having ever been governed by
a mathematical logic. The logic of justice has been the logic of a
we-group gradually expanding its area. Or it has been the logic of a
Magna Charta--a document of special privileges wrested from a superior
by a strong group, and gradually widening its benefits with the
admission of others into the favored class. Or it has been the logic of
class, in which those of the same level are treated alike but those of
different levels of birth or wealth are treated proportionately. Yet it
would seem far-fetched to maintain that the countrymen of Euclid and
Aristotle were deficient in the ability to perform so simple a reasoning
process as the judgment one equals one, or that men who developed the
Roman Law, or built the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, were similarly
lacking in elementary analysis. Inequality rather than equality has been
the rule in the world's justice. It has not only been the practice but
the approved principle. It still is in regard to great areas of life. In
the United States there is no general disapproval of the great
inequalities in opportunity for children, to say nothing of inequalities
in distribution of wealth. In England higher education is for the
classes rather than for the masses. In Prussia the inequality in voting
strength of different groups and the practical immunity of the military
class from the constraints of civil law seem to an American unfair. The
western states of the Union think it unfair to restrict the suffrage to
males and give women no voice in the determination of matters of such
vital interest to them as the law of divorce, the guardianship of
children, the regulation of women's labor, the sale of alcoholic
liquors, the protection of milk and food supply. Are all these
differences of practice and conviction due to the fact that some people
use reason while others do not? Of course in every case excellent
reasons can be given for the inequality. The gentile should not be
treated as a Jew because he is not a Jew. The slave should not be
treated as a free citizen because he is not a free citizen. The churl
should not have the same wergeld as the thane because he is lowborn. The
more able should possess more goods. The woman should not vote because
she is not a man. The reasoning is clear and unimpeachable if you accept
the premises, but what gives the premises? In every case cited the
premise is determined largely if not exclusively by social or emotional
factors. If reason can then prescribe equally well that the slave should
be given rights because he is a man of similar traits or denied rights
because he has different traits from his master, if the Jew may either
be given his place of equality because he hath eyes, hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions, or denied equality because he
differs in descent, if a woman is equal as regards taxpaying but unequal
as regards voting, it is at least evident that reason is no unambiguous
source of morality. The devil can quote Scripture and it is a very poor
reasoner who cannot find a reason for anything that he wishes to do. A
partiality that is more or less consistently partial to certain sets or
classes is perhaps as near impartiality as man has yet come, whether by
a rational faculty or any other.
Is it, then, the intent of this argument merely to reiterate that reason
is and ought to be the slave of the passions? On the contrary, the
intent is to substitute for such blanket words as reason and passions a
more adequate analysis. And what difference will this make? As regards
the particular point in controversy it will make this difference: the
rationalist having smuggled in under the cover of reason the whole moral
consciousness then proceeds to assume that because two and two are
always four, or the relations of a straight line are timeless, therefore
ethics is similarly a matter of fixed standards and timeless goods. A
legal friend told me that he once spent a year trying to decide whether
a corporation was or was not a person and then concluded that the
question was immaterial. But when the supreme court decided that a
corporation was a person in the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment it
thereby made the corporation heir to the rights established primarily
for the negro. Can the moral consciousness by taking the name "reason"
become heir to all the privileges of the absolute idea and to the
timelessness of space and number?
Suppose I am to divide an apple between my two children--two children,
two pieces--this is an analysis of the situation which is obvious and
may well be called the analytic activity of reason. But shall I give to
each an equal share on the ground that both are equally my children or
shall I reason that as John is older or larger or hungrier or mentally
keener or more generous or is a male, he shall have a larger piece than
Jane? To settle this it may be said that we ought to see whether there
is any connection between the size of the piece and the particular
quality of John which is considered, or that by a somewhat different use
of reason we should look at the whole situation and see how we shall
best promote family harmony and mutual affection. To settle the first of
these problems, that of the connection between the size of the piece and
the size of the hunger or the sex of the child, is seemingly again a
question of analysis, of finding identical units, but a moment's thought
shows that the case is not so simple; that the larger child should have
the larger piece is by no means self-evident. This is in principle
doubtless the logic, to him that hath shall be given. It is the logic of
the survival of the strong, but over against that the moral
consciousness has always set another logic which says that the smaller
child should have the larger piece if thereby intelligent sympathy can
contribute toward evening up the lot of the smaller. Now it is precisely
this attitude of the moral consciousness which is not suggested by the
term reason, for it is quite different from the analytic and identifying
activity. This analytical and identifying activity may very well rule
out of court the hypothesis that I should give John the larger piece
because he has already eaten too much or because he has just found a
penny or because he has red hair; it has undoubtedly helped in
abolishing such practices as that of testing innocence by the ordeal.
But before the crucial question of justice which divides modern society,
namely, whether we shall lay emphasis upon adjustment of rewards to
previous abilities, habits, possessions, character, or shall lay stress
upon needs, and the possibility of bringing about a greater measure of
equality, the doctrine which would find its standard in an _a priori_
reason is helpless.
If we look at the second test suggested, namely, that of considering the
situation as a whole with a view to the harmony of the children and the
mutual affection within the family, there can be even less question that
this is no mere logical problem of the individuals in a logical genus.
It is the social problem of individuals who have feelings and emotions
as well as thought and will. The problem of distributing the apple
fairly is then a complex in which at least the following processes
enter. (1) Analysis of the situation to show all the relevant factors
with the full bearing of each; (2) putting yourself in the place of each
one to be considered and experiencing to the full the claims, the
difficulties and the purposes of each person involved; (3) considering
all of these _as_ members of the situation so that no individual is
given rights or allowed claims except in so far as he represents a point
of view which is comprehensive and sympathetic. This I take it is the
force of President Wilson's utterance which has commanded such wide
acceptance: "America asks nothing for herself except what she has a
right to ask in the name of humanity." Kant aimed to express a high and
democratic ideal of justice in his doctrine that we should treat every
rational being as end. The defect in his statement is that the rational
process as such has never treated and so far as can be foreseen never
will treat _human_ beings as ends. To treat a human being as an end it
is necessary to put oneself into his place in his whole nature and not
simply in his universalizing, and legislative aspects: Kant's principle
is profound and noble, but his label for it is misleading and leaves a
door open for appalling disregard of other people's feelings,
sympathies, and moral sentiments, as Professor Dewey has indicated in
his recent lectures on "German Philosophy and Politics."
The term "reasonable," which is frequently used in law and common life
as a criterion of right, seems to imply that reason is a standard. As
already stated, common life understands by the reasonable man one who
not only uses his own thinking powers but is willing to listen to reason
as presented by some one else. He makes allowance for frailties in human
nature. To be reasonable means, very nearly, taking into account all
factors of the case not only as I see them but as men of varying
capacities and interests regard them. The type of the "unreasonable"
employer is the man who refuses to talk over things with the laborers;
to put himself in their place; or to look at matters from the point of
view of society as a whole.
Just as little does the term reasonable as used in law permit a purely
intellectualistic view of the process or an _a priori_ standard. The
question as to what is reasonable care or a reasonable price is often
declared to be a matter not for the court but for the jury to decide,
i.e., it is not to be deduced from any settled principle but is a
question of what the average thoughtful man, who considers other people
as well as himself, would do under the circumstances. A glance at some
of the judicial definitions of such phrases as "reasonable care,"
"reasonable doubt," "reasonable law," as brought together in _Words and
Phrases Judicially Defined_, illustrates this view. We get a picture not
of any definite standard but of such a process as we have described in
our analysis, namely, a process into which the existing social
tradition, the mutual adjustments of a changing society and the
intelligent consideration of all facts, enter. The courts have variously
defined the reasonable (1) as the customary, or ordinary, or legal, or
(2) as according with the existing state of knowledge in some special
field, or (3) as proceeding on due consideration of all the facts, or
(4) as offering sufficient basis for action. For example, (1) reasonable
care means "according to the usages, habits, and ordinary risks of the
business," (2) "surgeons should keep up with the latest advances in
medical science," (3) a reasonable price "is such a price as the jury
would under all the circumstances decide to be reasonable." "If, after
an impartial comparison and consideration the jury can say candidly they
are not satisfied with the defendant's guilt they have a reasonable
doubt." Under (4) falls one of various definitions of "beyond reasonable
doubt." "The evidence must be such as to produce in the minds of prudent
men such certainty that they would act without hesitation in their own
most important affairs." There is evidently ground for the statement of
one judge that "reasonable" (he was speaking the phrase "reasonable
care," but his words would seem to apply to other cases) "cannot be
measured by any fixed or inflexible standard." Professor Freund
characterizes "reasonable" as "the negation of precision." In the
development of judicial interpretation as applied to the Sherman Law the
tendency is to hold that the "rule of reason" will regard as forbidden
by the statute (_a_) such combinations as have historically been
prohibited and (_b_) such as seem to work some definite injury.